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Small Arms
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes containing gunpowder and pellet projectiles were mounted on spears to make the portable fire lance, operable by a single person, which was later used effectively as a shock weapon in the Siege of De'an in 1132. In the 13th century, fire lance barrels were replaced with metal tubes and transformed into the metal-barreled hand cannon. The technology gradually spread throughout Eurasia during the 14th century. Older firearms typically used black powder as a propellant, but modern firearms use smokeless powder or other propellants. Most modern firearms (with the notable exception of smoothbore shotguns) have rifled barrels to impart spin to the projectile for improved flight stability. Modern firearms can be described by their caliber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Navy 100714-N-4965F-174 Chief Mass Communication Specialist Paula Ludwick, Assigned To Fleet Combat Camera Group Pacific, Shoots At A Target During A Navy Rifle Qualification Course
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caliber
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matches that specification. It is measured in inches or in millimeters. In the United States it is expressed in hundredths of an inch; in the United Kingdom in thousandths; and elsewhere in millimeters. For example, a "45 caliber" firearm has a barrel diameter of roughly . Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions. For example, a "9 mm pistol" has a barrel diameter of about 9 millimeters. Since metric and US customary units do not convert evenly at this scale, metric conversions of caliber measured in decimal inches are typically approximations of the precise specifications in non-metric units, and vice versa. In a rifled barrel, the distance is measured between opposing lands or between opposing grooves; groove mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheellock
A wheellock, wheel-lock or wheel lock is a friction-wheel mechanism which creates a spark that causes a firearm to fire. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock and the first self-igniting firearm. Its name is from its rotating steel wheel to provide ignition. Developed in Europe around 1500, it was used alongside the matchlock and later the snaplock (1540s), the snaphance (1560s) and the flintlock (c. 1610s). Design The wheellock works by spinning a spring-loaded steel wheel against a piece of pyrite to generate intense sparks, which ignite gunpowder in a pan, which flashes through a small touchhole to ignite the main charge in the firearm's barrel. The pyrite is clamped in vise jaws on a spring-loaded arm (or 'dog'), which rests on the pan cover. When the trigger is pulled, the pan cover is opened, and the wheel is rotated, with the pyrite pressed into contact. A close modern analogy of the wheellock mechanism is the operation of a lighte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matchlock
A matchlock or firelock is a historical type of firearm wherein the gunpowder is ignited by a burning piece of rope that is touched to the gunpowder by a mechanism that the musketeer activates by pulling a lever or trigger with his finger. Before the invention of the matchlock mechanism, the musketeer or an assistant had to apply the match directly to gunpowder by hand, much like a cannon. The matchlock mechanism allowed the musketeer to apply the match himself without losing his concentration. Description The classic matchlock gun held a burning slow match in a clamp at the end of a small curved lever known as the ''serpentine''. Upon the pull of a lever (or in later models a trigger) protruding from the bottom of the gun and connected to the serpentine, the clamp dropped down, lowering the smoldering match into the flash pan and igniting the priming powder. The flash from the primer traveled through the touch hole, igniting the main charge of propellant in the gun barrel. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rifling
In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the projectile longitudinally by conservation of angular momentum, improving its aerodynamic stability and accuracy over smoothbore designs. Rifling is characterized by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one full revolution, such as "1 turn in 10 inches" (1:10 inches), "1 turn in 254 mm" ("1:254 mm" or "1:25.4 cm)", or the like. Normally, an experienced shooter can infer the units of measurement from the numbers alone. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will rotate at a higher spin rate. The combination of length, weight, and shape of a projectile determines the twist rate needed to gyroscopically stabilize it – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Barrel
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end ( muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres. The first firearms were made at a time when metallurgy was not advanced enough to cast tubes capable of withstanding the explosive forces of early cannons, so the pipe (often built from staves of metal) needed to be braced periodically along its length for structural reinforcement, producing an appearance somewhat reminiscent of storage barrels being stacked together, hence the English name.''A History of Warfare'' - Keegan, John, Vintage 1993. History Gun barrels are usually metal. Howev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Automatic Firearm
An automatic firearm is an auto-loading firearm that continuously chambers and fires rounds when the trigger mechanism is actuated. The action of an automatic firearm is capable of harvesting the excess energy released from a previous discharge to feed a new ammunition round into the chamber, and then ignite the propellant and discharge the projectile (either bullet, shot, or slug) by delivering a hammer or striker impact on the primer. If ''both'' the feeding and ignition procedures are automatically cycled, the weapon will be considered "fully automatic" and will fire continuously as long as the trigger is kept depressed and the ammunition feeding (either from a magazine or a belt) remains available. In contrast, a firearm is considered " semi-automatic" if it only automatically cycles to chamber new rounds (i.e. self-loading) but does not automatically fire off the shot unless the user manually resets (usually by releasing) and re-actuates the trigger, so only one rou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semi-automatic Firearm
A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm ( fully automatic and selective fire firearms are also variations on self-loading firearms), is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism ''automatically'' loads a following round of cartridge into the chamber (self-loading) and prepares it for subsequent firing, but requires the shooter to ''manually'' actuate the trigger in order to discharge each shot. Typically, this involves the weapon's action utilizing the excess energy released during the preceding shot (in the form of recoil or high-pressure gas expanding within the bore) to unlock and move the bolt, extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber, all without input from the user. To fire again, however, the user must actively release the trigger, allow it to "reset", before pulling the trigger again to fire off the next round. As a resul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revolver
A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating firearm, repeating handgun that has at least one gun barrel, barrel and uses a revolving cylinder (firearms), cylinder containing multiple chamber (firearms), chambers (each holding a single cartridge (firearms), cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six rounds of cartridge before needing to reload, revolvers are also commonly called six shooters. Before firing, cocking the revolver's hammer (firearms), hammer partially rotates the cylinder, indexing (motion), indexing one of the cylinder chambers into alignment with the barrel, allowing the bullet to be fired through the bore. The hammer cocking in nearly all revolvers are manually driven, and can be achieved either by the user using the thumb to directly pull back the hammer (as in trigger (firearms)#Single-action, single-action), via internal linkage (mechanical), linkage relaying the force of the trigger-pull (as in trigger (firearms)#Double-actio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pump Action
Pump action or slide action is a repeating firearm action that is operated manually by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to cock the hammer/ striker, and then pushed forward to load (''chamber'') a new cartridge into the chamber. Most pump-action firearms use an integral tubular magazine, although some do use detachable box magazines. Pump-action is typically associated with shotguns, although it has been used in rifles and other firearms as well. Because the forend is manipulated usually with the support hand, a pump-action gun is much faster than a bolt-action and somewhat faster than a lever-action, as it does not require the trigger hand to be removed from the trigger while reloading. Also because the action is cycled in a linear fashion, it creates less torque that can tilt and throw the gun off aim when repeat-firing rapidly. History The first slid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bolt Action
Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt via a bolt handle, which is most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon (as most users are right-handed). Most bolt-action firearms use a rotating bolt design, where the handle must first be rotated upward to unlock the bolt from the receiver, then pulled back to open the breech and allowing any spent cartridge case to be extracted and ejected. This also cocks the striker within the bolt (either on opening or closing of the bolt depending on the gun design) and engages it against the sear. When the bolt is returned to the forward position, a new cartridge (if available) is pushed out of the magazine and into the barrel chamber, and finally the breech is closed tight by rotating the handle down so the bolt head relocks on the receiver. Bolt-action firearms are generally repeating firearms, but some single-shot breechloaders also use bolt-action design ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lever Action
The toggle-link action used in the iconic Winchester Model 1873 rifle, one of the most famous lever-action firearms Lever-action is a type of action for repeating firearms that uses a manually operated cocking handle located around the trigger guard area (often incorporating it) that pivots forward to move the bolt via internal linkages, which will feed and extract cartridges into and out of the chamber, and cock the firing pin mechanism. This contrasts to other type of repeating actions such as the bolt-action, pump-action, semi-automatic, or automatic/ selective-fire actions. A firearm using this operating mechanism is colloquially referred to as a levergun. Most lever-action firearms are rifles, but some lever-action shotguns and a few pistols have been made. The Winchester Model 1873 rifle is one of the most famous lever-action firearms, but many manufacturers (notably Henry and Marlin) also produce lever-action rifles. Even Colt's Mfg. Co. produced the 6403 lever-a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
